Rebekah Brooks has resigned as chief executive of Rupert Murdoch’s News International as suspicion grows that phones were hacked belonging to victims of the 9/11 atrocity.

Brooks finally paid the price for the News of the World phone tapping scandal when she resigned on Friday morning, over a week after Murdoch announced the closure of Britain’s biggest selling Sunday newspaper.

The news broke after the FBI confirmed it is investigation claims that News International may have hacked into phones in the wake of the attacks on Ground Zero.

Brooks, Murdoch’s most senior executive in Britain, made her decision public in a memo to News International staff on Friday morning.

She was editor of the New of the World at the time of some of the phone hacking operations and has been called to appear before a British parliament enquiry along with Murdoch and his son James.